Doctor Who: The Vanishing
by R Lynn
Summary: In an amusement park in West Virginia thirteen people have been reported missing in the three months since it's opening. Along with employee Nicki Saunders, the Doctor must find out the reason behind the vanishing people before it happens again.
1. Chapter 1

The Doctor casually walked through the Galactic Amusement Park of Jordan, West Virginia. It was a tiny little town that seemed, over night, to have a jump in tourism. According to the city records the amusement park had only been built three months ago. And while that wasn't exactly strange, there were a number of missing persons reported since the grand opening at the start of summer. This could be written off as a coincidence but the Doctor wasn't so sure. The TARDIS had picked up a strange signal that the Doctor had trouble locating exactly except for the park.

Everything appeared normal. The park was full of family and groups of friends enjoying the summer and the space themed roller coasters and games. The Doctor smiled at a few of them almost forgetting that he wasn't here just on holiday. Spotting a particularly bored looking employee at a tiny booth the Doctor wandered over. The employee-a young woman with dark hair-perked up only slightly upon seeing the Doctor come toward her. She stood up straight and seemed to place a smile on her face out of habit not will.

"Hello sir, can I help you with anything today?" the woman asked as if reading from a monitor.

"Hullo." the Doctor said. He took out his psychic paper and flashed it in front of her face. "Health and Safety Inspector. You can call me the Doctor. I was wondering if you could tell me, Nicki." he read off her name badge "have you noticed anything strange around here lately?"

Nicki's brow furrowed, "Strange?" she looked the Doctor up and down. "You mean besides a man in a trench coat claiming to be from the health and safety department asking me questions? That paper is blank."

The Doctor blinked. He glanced down at the paper and tried not to look impressed or even concerned. He just smiled and put it back into his pocket. "Oh, so it is. Yes, well I'm just here doing a story for the paper checking up on those disappearances."

Nicki leaned forward on the counter and observed the Doctor with her calculating bronze colored eyes. "Oh yeah you're one of those reporters again. First time anyone has asked my opinion about the matter. Where are you from though, England? You sound British. Don't get me wrong, but how did you end up working in a town like Jordan?"

"I just transferred over from, London yes. It's a long boring story trust me the details aren't that great. Now, Nicki could you tell me when the first person went missing?" The Doctor replied. She was a curious one.

Nicki shrugged, "It was before I started working here. I got a job about a month back. From what I heard the first guy vanished opening day. No one knows what happened to him."

The Doctor nodded, "How many have disappeared since you began working?"

"Three, I think. There were more before that but—hey you're not gonna tell my boss I spoke to you are you? Cause I really can't afford to lose this job. It's gonna end up paying for my school books next semester."

With a slight sigh and a smile that was growing ever more impatient the Doctor shook his head. "No."

"Aren't you a bit hot?" Nicki asked off topic.

"Sorry?"

"Your coat, it's a bit hot to be wearing that in the heat of July. Especially in West Virginia."

The Doctor leaned on the counter getting closer to Nicki. "Nicki, please I need you to answer my questions. Have you seen anything strange lately? Anything at all? If you could recall what happened on the day of the disappearances or something."

Nick stood back and shrugged her shoulders, "It's an amusement park, you see a lot of strange things but you pass it off. I mean, I think fanny packs are strange and still I count thirty-two people wearing them today so far. Eighty-seven was the highest count about two weeks back. Now tell me, is it strange for a grown man or woman to wear a fanny pack outside of the 1990's? I think the answer you're looking for is a big fat yes."

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair and murmured under his breath, "Blimey this is going to be harder than I thought." raising his voice again for Nicki to hear he said "I'm talking about strange as in suspicious. Any unusual characters or things?"

"Again, Doctor, I'm staring at the most unusual person I've seen to date. I mean really, aren't you sweating in that thing? What's it made out of couch upholstery?"

"Nicki-"

The Doctor's voice was cut short by a loud bang and a collective batch of screams. Smoke rose from the other corner of the park and everyone stopped to stare. The smoke didn't appear to be coming from a ride.

"What was that?"

But the Doctor was already running toward the explosion. Nicki, without hesitation, went after him.

The Doctor approached the sight where the smoke had been coming from. Crowds of people were being pushed away from the area by security, but the Doctor snuck around. The smoke had stopped by the time he arrived. A twelve-foot fence stood in his way with a great padlock. No problem. The Doctor thought. He took out the sonic screwdriver just as Nicki caught up with him. She stopped, breathing heavily.

"Anyone ever tell you that you run really, really fast?" She tossed her long ponytail out of the way.

The Doctor turned exacerbated. "No, no go back."

Nicki scoffed. "As if, I'm staying with you, I'm involved now. Besides I want to know what that was. What is that thing?"

"It's a sonic screwdriver."

"A sonic what?"

The Doctor was aiming the tool at the padlock. The blue tip of the sonic lit up and hummed. Nothing happened. The Doctor groaned and dropped the heavy padlock from his hand.

"No good. Dead locked sealed." he was now trying to examine the fence and the best way to scale it. Suspecting that scaling a deadlocked sealed fence would be too easy, the Doctor picked up a small rock and tossed it at the space above the fence. It collided with an invisible barrier and fizzled into dust. "Right, no way of entering above, or through the front. I'd suggest tunneling but I have a feeling that won't be very discrete. Better off trying to find the device that can undo the deadlock. Question is, where to start?"

Nicki watched in amazement. "Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor."

"You've said that before, but what does that mean? Doctor who?"

"I'm a Time Lord, I can travel through time and space. I came here because my ship picked up some kind of signal, and it was coming from this park. And with the missing persons and the not so friendly force field, I can only assume whoever is behind it all is not from this planet."

Nicki stared. She had heard and comprehended what the Doctor had said but she was having a hard time believing it. The Doctor didn't exactly have time for her to come to grips with the Universe being larger than she has previously imagined. He held out his hand to her.

"You're not from Earth?"

"Nope." the Doctor grinned his hand still waiting for Nicki's own.

"And aliens are real?"

"Of course they're real, are you real?" the Doctor said somewhat offended.

Nicki's face stretched into great big grin. "This. Is. So. Cool!" she took the Doctor's hand and squeezed it.

The Doctor, seemingly reenergized by Nicki's reaction, made a grin to match hers and held onto her hand. "Well then Nicki, since you're 'involved' now shall we go find the source of the force field?"

Nicki beamed, butterflies tossing her stomach into a great mess. She lifted her chin and nodded at the Doctor. "Hope you can keep up. Allons-y!"


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor and Nicki arrived at the main security office. "No place better than hub of technology. How much are you willing to bet there was a camera near by that recorded the explosion?" the Doctor grinned.

Nicki smiled in return, excited by just being in the presence of this man. "What if they cut the cameras?" she asked her smile fading.

The Doctor looked at her impressed. "Good observation, but I think we'll just have to take our chances." He took out her sonic and used it on the door. With a click they were in.

A guard was relaxing lazily in a chair tipped back and his feet up on the console. Seeing the Doctor and Nicki he almost fell. "Hey what do you think you're doing?"

"Hullo, John Smith Health and Safety, don't mind me."

The Doctor flashed the psychic paper in the guard's face and he didn't say another word against though he did give Nicki a suspicious glance.

"Shadowing." Nicki said, "Thinking of getting into this job. I'm interning…on my break."

The Doctor slid a pair of dark framed glasses onto his face and leaned over the console looking at the various screens showing sections of the park. "What's your name?"

"Lionel." the guard said sheepishly.

Nicki sucked her lips in to keep from laughing. The guard was burly with thick arms probably in his mid thirties. He did not come off as someone who would be named Lionel. The Doctor hesitated at the unexpected name. He cleared his throat and proceeded.

"Nice to meet you…Lionel. So Lionel, have you been in here all afternoon?"

"Sure have, my shift doesn't end for another three hours. Don't get a break or nothing, not that I'm complaining its work after all. And with this economy it is hard to find a decent job. Especially when you don't have a fancy degree."

"You never went to college? You seem like a smart enough man." Nicki commented. Lionel flushed and lifted his chin with pride. The Doctor was busy using his sonic on the tapes and TV screens trying to find the instance of the explosion.

"Thank you. I'm glad you think so. I'm sorry I don't even know your name. Are you new to working here?"

"I'm Nicki, I tend to stick to the shadows here. In and out don't stop to chat." she explained.

"That's odd." the Doctor said breaking up their conversation.

"What?"

"Well, there is a camera pointed directly at the area where that explosion occurred. can't see over the fence still unfortunately. But, the tape didn't record anything at all if it was recording to begin with. What are they hiding?" He ran his hand through his hair.

"Explosion? You mean the Deep Space Rocket that broke down earlier?" Lionel asked.

The Doctor's ears perked up, "Deep Space what?"

"The Deep Space Rocket, it's a roller coaster. Not exactly an original name." Nicki informed him "One of the most popular rides here. But it couldn't have been that because that was in the opposite direction."

Lionel shrugged and sat up in his chair and played with some of the controls to replay the tapes from earlier. "I don't know about an explosion Mr. Smith but that coaster sure made quite a loud bang when one of the cars crashed into another. No one was aboard though, they were giving it a dry run after it was making a weird noise."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "How do you know all of that? You said you have been in here all day."

"I have been, but I get bored watching the screens so I change the channel on my radio to the park maintenance. The only thing they mentioned all afternoon was the crash of one of the cars from Deep Space Rocket." Lionel played the tape of the roller coaster car crashing into another empty one. The Doctor wasn't convinced.

"You mean to say you didn't hear a loud explosion followed by a bunch of people screaming?" Nicki was skeptical. She eyed the screens as the Doctor now used his sonic to skim through the recorded bits. He went through the whole tape of camera 12D the one positioned only thirty feet from the fence that was locked. There was no sign of any smoke.

"How is that possible?" she whispered leaning closer to the Doctor.

The Doctor took a deep breath, "Its not impossible just very improbable. Oh look here!" he backed the tape up and played it slowing it down. "There is a tiny blip a second where the screen goes all wobbly. See!" he jammed his finger on the screen and froze the tape on the exactly spot. The entire image was scrambled. Lionel gaped at it.

"I never even noticed that." he said.

"You wouldn't. Happened for a second unless you were staring directly at the screen and slowed the tape down you would not have noticed it. An inference at the time of the explosion." The Doctor stood back and stared at the frozen image, the lines all twisted and almost unrecognizable.

"It still doesn't make sense though." Nicki said tapping her fingers on the console. "The picture is fine a second later, we saw the smoke for at least five minutes after."

"Another fine observation Nicki. Oh you're a smart one." The Doctor winked at her. "If you continue to watch the video though it has been placed on a loop for six minutes and thirty-four second after that until it began recording again. Which means that someone else is controlling the cameras from a different location. Someone didn't want Lionel here seeing the explosion and going out for a look."

"But, I control the cameras see." Lionel pressed a few buttons and turned some dials. Various cameras zoomed in and out and one turned off for a moment before switching back on. "No one else can possibly control them."

"Again with that word possible. Anything is possible just highly improbable. Alright so someone is hiding the explosion from the guard but people around the park clearly noticed it. Why hide it from the tapes?"

"Maybe he isn't part of them?" Nicki suggested.

"Them?" Lionel asked.

"Yeah, it's obvious isn't it? A great big conspiracy going on within the park, which means that, it has to coming from the head of the park the owner Mr. Lovett. He has an office on site is always here. Can't hide much from the big boss man so that means it has to be the big boss man who is behind it all. Mr. Lovett is the extraterrestrial we are looking for! He's using the park for what ever reason and that explosion was something he was working on going sour!" Nicki was practically bouncing by the end. She was clearly proud of herself. The Doctor was proud of her as well. He stood there staring at her at loss for words. There was a great big cheeky grin on his face.

"Oh that's brilliant Nicki! Really that is truly brilliant, you're brilliant." His voice went all squeaky with excitement. He flung his arms around her in a large hug. She beamed at him.

"Um, did she say extraterrestrial as in alien?" Lionel raised his hand thoroughly confused The Doctor looked to him momentarily forgetting her was there.

"Right well we should be going. Thank you for everything Lionel, always a pleasure meeting new people."

"Bye!" Nicki said with a wave. She was still bouncing from the high praise she received from the Doctor.

"You know Doctor I was thinking," Nicki said after a minute. They were heading toward Mr. Lovett's office toward the center of the park. "When all of this is over with, was hoping I could come with you. I mean you said you have a ship right? I bet it gets lonely there and I'm kind of unemployed, or rather I probably will be. Anyway, you're strange but that's pretty awesome."

The Doctor tilted his head in her direction and raised a quizzical brow. Nicki flushed. "Sorry I ramble sometimes." she took a deep breath and started again "I just think that since I am kind of brilliant and all I could travel with you for a bit."

She watched the Doctor in anticipation. He slowed to a stop his hands shoved into the pockets of his brown pinstriped suit. He was frowning at her with so much sadness in his eyes.

"Please?"

"I'm sorry Nicki, it's best if I travel alone now." he walked on.

"Now? So there have been others?" Nicki jogged after him.

"Yes. I can't take anymore people with me, I just can't."

Nicki puffed out her chest and stood in his path, determination etched on her face. "I'm coming with you. I'll find a way to sneak aboard. I won't stop following you. You're lonely I can tell, and I'm lonely so ipso facto together we won't be so lonely."

The Doctor stood in silence with the same sorrow filled frown. Slowly he smiled but it did not light up ancient eyes.

"There is no getting rid of you is there?"

"I told I am involved now." Nicki crossed her arms defiantly.

The Doctor sighed smiled further this time there was a bit of happiness in her eyes. "It will be dangerous."

Nicki noticed the change and smiled slyly back at him. "That's my problem, besides I've never really been alive before today."

"You're brilliant you are." The Doctor said.

"Is that a yes?"

There was a pause. "Sure, why not?"

Nicki screamed and leapt at the Doctor. She latched onto his arm and began dragging him forward. "Well then, what are we standing around here for then Astro Boy? Let's go catch out alien baddie and head off to see the universe!"


End file.
